The Child and Adult Care Food Program – CACFP

CACFP is a nutrition education and meal reimbursement program helping providers serve nutritious and safely prepared meals and snacks to children and adults in day care settings.

The CACFP initiative is supported through an entitlement program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and continues New York’s commitment of promoting the health and well being of its residents. Currently, more than 1,500 sponsoring organizations representing 14,000 licensed or registered center-based or family day care sites are participating statewide. On average, day care providers serve approximately 300,000 meals to children and adults each day. In 2010, New York received nearly $190 million in federal USDA funds for this expanded nutrition program.

Participating sponsors include:

CHILD CARE CENTERS, including head start centers, and outside school hour programs serving children up to 12 years of age;

HOME-BASED FAMILY and GROUP CHILD CARE, including legally exempt providers caring for subsidized children;

COMMUNITY-BASED ADULT DAY CARE CENTERS that are approved by federal, state or local authorities to provide day care services to adults with disabilities;

AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS providing educational or enrichment programming for children up to 19 years of age; and

HOMELESS SHELTERS providing meals to resident children living with a parent or guardian.

For more detailed information regarding eligibility requirement, please visit CACFP. If you are a family child care provider, and interested in enrolling in CACFP or find out the sponsor agencies near you, please contact our provider specialist team at (212) 941-1828 (English line) & (212) 792-4597 (Chinese line).